Tonsilitis

I have done (literally) nothing for the last 3 days as I was struck down with tonsillitis on Tuesday evening (Boxing Day).  I have been taking penicillin and eating soup as my throat was so sore I could not eat anything until Friday afternoon.

The antibiotics did the trick though – it has almost 100% cleared up so today I headed off to gym to try another treadmill based short run, do some stretching and some weights.  Before running, I had a slight ache in my ankle; during running and for about 4 hours afterwards I had no discomfort at all.  Now the top of my heel at the back is hurting.  I am not sure if the Achilles has not recovered, or if it is hurting because it has become slightly weaker after being injured.  During the last 5 days of doing no training, my ankle has ached more, so I am coming to the conclusion that not running is causing me problems.  Hence I tried a run today.

Over the next week I will start doing some regular short runs to see if I can “run it off”.  I hope so, as the Marathon is 16 weeks today!

Making change happen

Oxfam is concerned about gender inequality because the majority of the world’s poor are women: around 70 per cent of the 1.3 billion people who live in extreme poverty, on less than one dollar a day, are women and girls. Gender discrimination, or the denial of women’s basic human rights, is also a major cause of poverty. Men and women experience many aspects of poverty differently and ignoring these differences risks further entrenching poverty and the subordination of women.

The right to gender equality underpins all Oxfam’s work with communities across the world. In many countries, social customs and attitudes tacitly condone and support violence against women, and are entrenched in families and communities. These attitudes are based on a deep-seated social belief that women are fundamentally of less value than men. Only when this perception changes will violence against women be viewed as a shocking, unacceptable violation rather than an invisible norm.

Read more here and if this makes you think, then sponsor me and directly help make a difference by donating money to Oxfam.

Merry Christmas!

Had a great Christmas Day – some of my Christmas presents were running related, which is much appreciated.  Not just because they are about running, but also the thought behind them shows that my running and training for the London Marathon is important not just to me but also to those around me.

I am looking forward to the next few days with my family, as I know time will be scarce come the New Year and the real hard work starts.

Christmas Eve

No training at all today (although I did no the achilles exercises).  In addition to seeing Santa at the steam railway and going to Grannie’s for a Xmas Eve party, we started the day with a trip to the Out of Hours GP as my oldest has developed an infection in his lymph glands and mild tonsilitis (she prescribed antibiotics and said not to worry)!  A pretty packed day has been rounded off with last minute present wrapping, and leaving the mince pie and carrot for Santa and Rudolf.

We saw a number of Santa’s today (including the real one on the Norad Website), but the best one was a Grannie’s house, as he delivered a Shetland pony for all 7 grandchildren to share.  My two boy’s loved him (Mickey), as did all the the cousins.

One thing I did notice today – there were alot of people out getting their last run in before Christmas Day.  No doubt trying to burn off the extra calories they will take on tomorrow.  Needless to say I was very jealous and would love to have been getting a few miles in today as penance for the over-indulgence tomorrow!

It’s not to be though, so I will look forward to the next few days with my family, the New Year festivities and enjoy the anticipation of running in the New Year.

Happy Christmas!!

Getting ready for Christmas

This was the last day before all the Christmas activities start fully – tomorrow is completely taken up with a steam train ride with Santa followed by a Christmas Surprise for all the little ones in our family at their Grannie’s house.  This well then no doubt be followed by last minute present wrapping and food preparation for Christmas Day.

The kitchen was finished today by Paul (our kitchen fitter) and it now looks great.  Once he was done, I left my wife making mince pies and reindeer cakes with the two children and headed off to the gym for the last workout before Christmas.  I know if I could run properly I would find time to head out the front door on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, but because of the problems I am having with my left ankle and calf, I will not be risking a run on concrete for a few more days.

Instead, I warmed up on the bike at the gym for 20 minutes and lifted weights.  I have done two sets of the achilles exercises at home and will keep this up for the next week, to see if it will strengthen my calf.

This evening I made the most of the new kitchen and knocked up our family Christmas favourite – Nigella Lawson’s Clementine Cake.  It is great any time of the year, but the smell and taste of warm clementines, along with grated chocolate and cream has a real Christmas taste to it, so we always have it for Christmas day.

Still got a couple of Christmas presents to wrap and the children’s Christmas presents to lay out, but that should be fun. As I am forced to forget about training for a few days, I will relax and enjoy the festivities!

Is it Tendonitis?

I am starting to think that maybe I have some tendonitis in my ankle, as a left over from the achilles tendon damage that I had. I have been self-diagnosing on the Internet, and found a couple of sites that describe the type of ache in my ankle. They describe it as inflamed tendons that then weaken the calf muscle, which also explains the discomfort in my calf.

Although the short run I did yesterday did not make it any worse, I am not sure that running is a good idea for a few more days (ugh!). I did find some good exercises to strengthen the calf, so I started those yesterday.

After tomorrow, there will be no time for running as Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day are going to be too busy.  One more session in the gym tomorrow (probably weights) and then I will be forced into a 3-day rest.

I definitely need to try and relax about this – there are still nearly four months before the marathon, so, as Zappoman keeps telling me, I have plenty of time.

I ran today….

….only for a 3 km at an easy pace on the treadmill as it was my first run for a month.  My ankle and calf were aching, so I decided to try out a short easy jog to stretch them out and warm them up.  It didn’t hurt whilst I was running, but now aches a little.  I don’t think it is my achilles, so I hope that I can now start building up to a longer run over the next 10 days and shake of the ache that I still have.

Only time will tell – I will keep my fingers crossed that less walking around over the next week whilst I am off work and a little running will get me ready to start training properly from January 1st.

1250m Swim

Even though I left work half an hour later than I planned and then my train was delayed by 30 minutes, I was still able to make it to the gym today!

I am still feeling something strange in my left ankle, so I warmed my legs up on the bike for 5 minutes and then stretched for 15 minutes, before going in the pool for half an hour and swimming just over a kilometre.  It felt really good to do some exercise after a week of nothing!

Had a real running envy moment on the way home from work – as I was walking up to my house from the station Norma and Annie (two of the main organisers from my local running club and great female vet runners) ran past me.  It is was about 1 degree Celsius so they had on running jackets, tights and gloves and were chatting away to each other.  I love running in this kind of cold weather, so was very jealous that they were enjoying their evening run!!

I know I will be back out there soon (and probably cursing the cold weather) – I can’t wait.

Another “rest” day…..

Still didn’t make it to the gym today or out for a run. On the way home I kept thinking that it was going to be fine for a run, but then suddenly I would feel a slight twinge in my ankle that made me think “uh-oh, better leave it another few days”. So before I got home I decided that I would just head to the gym for a swim instead.

When I got home, I found that my brother-in-law (in fact 2 of them) had done such a great job of painting my kitchen that they had finished early and the paint was all dry. My wife has been going nuts for the last 16 days trying to live with our two small children in one room without a kitchen, so the number 1 priority this evening was to put the kitchen back together so she could start to enjoy it and relax in the last few days before Christmas.

So, instead of risking any injuries, we moved everything back into the kitchen and it is now looking great!  Having the kitchen again will definitely put some routine back into our daily lives, so I should be able to get back to the gym for the remainder of this week.

On a really positive note, two very generous sponsors today.  Thankyou Brad and Louise for you support and helping allow Oxfam to continue their work.

Brad has a great blog right here on WordPress that I have been reading regularly as his story of how he changed his lifestyle completely and became an Ironman is both inspiring and motivating.  Keep posting Brad!

Louise is heavily involved in fundraising (she is currently working at Concern in Belfast, NI) so does alot  already to help those that need it.  Your donation means alot to me and to my chosen charity. Thanks to you (and a big “hi” to Ian!).

Work, Family, Sleep, Run…..

…..at the moment it seems that is the priority of things.  Today, as usual, I went to work before my family woke up.  Because we are still having our kitchen completed, they had arranged to come home late ready for bed, so I stayed at work a bit later than I normally do.  I left at about 6pm with the plan of getting home, having something quick to eat and then heading out to the gym to do a very easy couple of miles on a nicely sprung treadmill to test out the Achilles.

As with all great plans, it went wrong before I got to step 2 – the train was delayed and my 35 minute train ride took about an hour and a half.  This meant that by the time I got home (nearly 15 hours since I had left for work) I was pushing it to get to the gym.  Plus I was very tired after spending the weekend preparing the kitchen to be painted today by my brother-in-law and having a very interupted sleep last night as my 3 year old has a cold that work him up every half an hour.

So I am now putting sleep before the run.  Not quite what I wanted, as today was supposed to be my first run for a month.  Thinking positively, this is another day of recovery for my Achilles, so it should be even stronger tomorrow.  If things go to plan…….